How much do you think Facebook influences your decision to purchase a product or not? Whether you interacted with a brand for the first time, learned more details about the product, communicated with the representatives of the online store or just read a few reviews, cumulatively, all of these led you to buy a product or service. In this article, we will show you some ways in which you can sell through the Facebook Ads platform.

What is your goal? What are you aiming to achieve as a result of promoting on Facebook Ads?

When you don’t know your destination, you can travel anywhere, but complaints are not accepted. If you don’t have goals, you can eliminate your expectations. What is the main objective of the business? You want more sales, maybe more visibility, why not some key information about your most valuable customers? Once you know the overall goal, turn it into a specific one! By what percentage do you want to increase your sales, in how much time and within which social media channels? How much budget do you have for gathering information generated by leads? Greater visibility? How many people do you want your ads to reach?

On the other hand, take into account the stage of your business! If you’re just starting out, don’t set unrealistic goals! You will not be able to have 100 new customers or orders per store overnight if your target audience has never heard of the brand and if the page does not have social proof. First build a base of satisfied customers and only then focus on the next step: conversions.

The good news is that Facebook takes all of the above goals into account by structuring them within a funnel. So the objectives will be grouped in three categories: awareness, consideration and conversion, each category being divided into other subgroups.

What audience are you targeting?

The worst scenario when using the Facebook Ads platform is when you notice a considerable consumption of the budget, but without obtaining any useful results. On the other hand, maybe you understand this scenario! You must have experienced it at least once in your life. Let’s do a little imagination exercise: let’s say you are a person who enjoys the solitude of his person. But Facebook does not take this into account! So they obsessively show you articles for babies and children every day. You have nothing to do with this information, possibly just share it with family friends. Ultimately, you’ll probably end up reporting the ads or hiding them from your feed. The moral of the story? Consider your ideal audience!

Ok, but how can you do that? The answer is simple: by testing different types of audiences! Are you facing the situation of wasting the budget? Stop ad sets and test a different audience or even other creatives! Have you finally discovered the gold mine? The testing does not stop here!

Take a look at the “Placements” setting. Maybe opting for “in stream videos” of an article whose main goal is to increase traffic is not the best solution. Instead, posting to the News Feed may be the ideal choice! Are the products you promote part of the beauty field? How about placing ads within the Instagram platform then?

Of course, targeting options are much more complex than that! Through the Facebook Pixel, you can opt for several types of audiences, such as custom, saved and lookalikes. But who or what is this Pixel? In simple terms, we can define it as: a code integrated into the business website, through which you can track conversions, optimize ads, build different types of audiences and even create an entire effective remarketing process.

A saved audience is an audience already created based on certain demographic characteristics that can be replicated in other ad sets. For example, you can opt for a saved audience with general characteristics. This will facilitate the process of creating ad sets, because it will no longer be necessary to enter the same targeting, one by one. To create such an audience, all you have to do, after setting the demographic characteristics, is to access the “Save this audience” button located below the Connections section, after which you will have to give a representative name to the created audience.

A saved audience is an audience already created based on certain demographic characteristics that can be replicated in other ad sets. For example, you can opt for a saved audience with general characteristics. This will facilitate the process of creating ad sets, because it will no longer be necessary to enter the same targeting, one by one. To create such an audience, all you have to do, after setting the demographic characteristics, is to access the “Save this audience” button located below the Connections section, after which you will have to give a representative name to the created audience.

The option to create a lookalike audience allows you to target potential customers who have similar characteristics to those in a previously saved audience. An example of a lookalike audience can be done by website visitors from the last 90 days.

To create your own lookalike audience go to: Ads Manager -> Audiences -> Create an audience -> Lookalike audience -> Select the source of the audience -> Select the location of the audience -> Select the size of the audience (how big you want the similarity to be). In our experience, the most effective sizes are 1% and 2%. But as I said, test different values ​​to get the best option!

You can find all the created audiences in the Audiences section. To use them, all you have to do is include them in your ad set settings, Audience section, Custom audiences subsection.

The message you want to convey: the ads and the creative part

Now that you have discovered your ideal customers, the next question arises: how can I capture their attention? Potential customers are bombarded with hundreds of advertisements every day, so you need to stand out, in a positive way! The elements you should focus on are: the text of the advertisement, the visual part, the title, the description of the page to which the link refers (if applicable) and the call to action.

The text of the ad

The text of the advertisement must not contain immortal stories! Try to be short and to the point! As in the case of any other marketing process, you will get the ideal variant only after testing. If for some customers the inclusion of a question in the text works, for others the words that attract attention pay off. Also, try using emojis. After all, Facebook is a social media platform, not a sales platform. To identify the emoticon according to the text, you can use this tool: Emojipedia. 

Avoid using teleshopping phrases! Put user experience first! Give them valuable information, say something funny or something that captures. Build a relationship with him. Communicate! And sales won’t be long in coming.

The visual elements

Regardless of whether we are talking about photos, videos, preview images from links or carousels, they must obey the same rules: originality, creativity and usefulness. Don’t use any image you find on Google (you might get surprises, like copyright infringement). Our favorite websites that contain free visuals are: Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash.

Most people operate on a visual basis. The first time they will see the image, and then they will read the text, if the image caught their attention. Don’t use too much text within images! Facebook recommends using only 20% text on an image. If this limit is exceeded, the ad will either be rejected or have very poor results. To check if the images are within normal parameters, you can use this tool: Facebook Text Overlay. 

Videos are the main star on Facebook! By using them, you will get extraordinary results, at the lowest cost. However, don’t just rely on this! There are some rules here too: rely on short, qualitative and informative videos.

Facebook’s recommendation is to use videos that are 15 seconds long. Don’t forget the message! If within the images, you are not allowed to use too much text, this rule does not apply here either! Build on emotions, use subtitles and don’t forget copyright.

Conclusion

Get your hands on it and test it! Here you go! Taking into account the above tips and the rules provided by Facebook, we recommend you to set up an effective strategy with long-term effects. Don’t look for immediate profit, results never appear overnight! You will need budget, time, patience, and later experience accumulates.

If you do not have these, we recommend you to collaborate with a specialist or an agency with experience in Facebook Ads.